There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
By vulgarity I mean that vice of civilization which makes man ashamed of himself and his next of kin, and pretend to be somebody else.
Well, if I am not vulgar, neither is my book. I wrote myself. Suggestiveness is always vulgar. But truth never. My book is not even remotely suggestive. I call things by their names. That is all.
Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit.
People call things 'vulgar' when they are new to them. When they have become old, they become 'good taste.'
Fact is based upon vulgar matter.
Above all, I dislike vulgarity.
Television is not vulgar because people are vulgar; it is vulgar because people are similar in their prurient interests and sharply differentiated in their civilized concerns.
I think the reason that swearing is both so offensive and so attractive is that it is a way to push people's emotional buttons, and especially their negative emotional buttons. Because words soak up emotional connotations and are processed involuntarily by the listener, you can't will yourself not to treat the word in terms of what it means.
Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar, in point of style.
The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.